Belgium Bugatti Club - Our members are no show-offs
Interview with Erwin Beerens by Bert Voet
Photographs Jeroen Hanselaer
For his 1931 Bugatti Type 54, Erwin Beerens went to great lengths – but he hasn’t regretted it for a second. A look behind the scenes of the Belgian Bugatti Club.
The Belgium Bugatti Club does not have a permanent clubhouse. The monthly meetings take place alternately at a few members' homes. One of them is Erwin Beerens (64), CEO of what was once one of the largest car dealerships in Belgium.
He receives us at his "Hof ter Pull" in Wijnegem, Belgium, where the former farm near the castle is now his man cave. "My junk room", he calls it: "not to be confused with my grease room – the workshop." This is where the club meets regularly. "We eat a piece of pizza and drink a Duvel (Strong Belgian beer, ed.). You can put your feet up on the table. You can do whatever you want here."
There is a large fireplace, and there are cabinets full of books, magazines and memorabilia – from wooden molds to a Bugatti bike. A big play area for a big kid. "We hold our general meeting in the Brussels restaurant Le Bugatti", laughs Beerens. "We used to do that in the museum of Bugatti importer D’Ieteren, among other places. Roland D’Ieteren, who died in 2020, was a club member and a fanatic car enthusiast. A fantastic man, who you saw everywhere.
The legendary design company Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera in Milan was his, and despite his status as car pope he was still selling at trade fairs himself. His son Nicolas is less visible, but will soon take part in our International Bugatti Meeting".
Erwin Beerens' car collection
In addition to a cartload of motorcycles, Beerens' collection includes around forty cars, mainly prewars. Eleven of them are Bugattis, but an American Harry Miller from 1927 also stands out. "That thing is powered by a 1500 cc eight-cylinder with compressor, good for 300 hp and 300 kilometers per hour", he says. "It was just about the only car that could inspire Ettore Bugatti. He bought two, took them apart and promptly started on a double overhead camshaft himself. But make no mistake: Bugatti was one of the biggest patent holders of his time, from four-wheel drive to the suspension of fast trains and an ultralight aircraft engine. He then sold those technologies, like Porsche and McLaren do today." (I have seen no proof of Bugatti actually selling licenses for his patented inventions, at least not from the 1920's onwards, ed.)
Autobiography | Erwin Beerens
Erwin Beerens (64) ran dealerships for brands from the VW group, Opel, Toyota and Nissan, which he sold over the past decade. He still has sales outlets for second-hand cars under the brand name B2. He is also active in the international car trade and provides a range of services to other car companies. At the same time, he is a real estate developer and co-owner of the construction company SVK.
First: Opel Kapitän 1938
Daily: Bentley Continental 2012
Best: VW Golf 1 GTI 1976
Worst: VW Sharan 1995
Sold with regret: Bugatti Veyron 2008
Dream: Bugatti type 59 1934
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He shows the Bugatti Type 35A (1927) that used to belong to Australian designer Marc Newson. ‘Completely original, except for the bodywork’, says Beerens. The car has a remarkable accessory: Newson had leather travel bags custom-made by Hermès, fitting perfectly behind the seats. ‘You could already order that in the 1920s’, says Beerens. ‘Then you got a smaller petrol tank.’
His Type 57C Coupé Spécial (1938), Le Patron, is one of the highlights of the brand’s history, with a factory bodywork. ‘Ettore Bugatti drove it himself for many years. Every possible innovation was tested on this car for twenty years. The radio was special at the time, and the light enters through the plastic roof.
It also has an electromagnetic Cotal gearbox – the tiptronic avant la lettre – and height-adjustable lights. The car was repainted at one point, but never restored. It was owned by a few collectors, including Jean De Dobbeleer from Brussels. I bought it at an auction in Paris. And yes, I drive it occasionally. Just on the public road.’
‘Only six copies of this Type 54 from 1931, an ex-‘factory car’ of racing driver Achille Varzi, who drove it in Monza and Avus, were built. I traded nine cars for it’, he laughs. ‘Paid a lot, yes, but I prefer it to the other nine put together.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, an attractive car is one with a history from day one, a good story and that also drives well. I prefer one that has not been restored or has hardly been restored. To have a soul, it doesn’t necessarily have to have been driven a lot. The original leaf spring with stamp is much more important to me. Look, Ettore either punched in numbers everywhere or my initials EB.’ (laughs)
‘There is a lot of faking’, Beerens knows. ‘Patina is also imitated: put some products on it, let them work in and it’s done. The Type 35 is often built with a mix of original and newly made parts. That is not fake in itself, it is a so-called Bitsa: a cobbled-together car. And then it costs 300,000 euros instead of 3 million. The Bugattis completely newly built by Pursang in Argentina cost around 250,000 euros. Even an expert can hardly see the difference. You can hear it: they run cleaner. And the aluminum sheet metal is just a little thinner.’
The soul of Bugatti
Beerens bought his first Bugatti in 1983. Where does this preference come from? ‘The soul of Bugatti is different from that of other brands’, he says. He shows an old Bugatti advert: no car in the picture, but a horse. Le pursang des automobiles, it says. ‘Ettore was crazy about horses. Hence: pursang, thoroughbred. And the horseshoe-shaped radiator grille.’
‘I don’t even have to drive it. Screwing and looking is at least as much fun. I’m a tinkerer, have been since I was sixteen, and the mechanics of a Bugatti are wonderfully put together. Ettore came from an artistic family: his father Carlo designed furniture; his brother Rembrandt was a sculptor, best known for his bronze animal statues - he often worked in Antwerp Zoo.
The mechanics that Ettore developed are also a feast for the eyes. The screws have different sizes and square heads instead of hexagonal ones. Why? I have no idea. But what he created is more than mechanics. For me, it is art.’
‘Until the 1930s, Bugatti was a true pioneer. They won everything, broke speed records, you name it. But then came Alfa Romeo, which took the pants off Bugatti. During WWII, the factory in the French Alsace was confiscated by the German occupiers. After the war, Ettore tried to restart it, but he died in 1947. Another Type 101 followed, based on the 57 but with modern bodywork – only it could not compete with, for example, a Delahaye or Jaguar XK.
In the 1950s, the company bled to death. Until the Italian Romano Artioli bought the brand rights in the 1980s and launched a super sports car with the EB 110. He also went bankrupt, after which Ferdinand Piëch of Volkswagen bought the name and started building new Bugattis, beginning with the Veyron.’
Beerens also had one of those. ‘I was able to buy it cheaply from a bankruptcy,’ he says. ‘But it ate tires and the maintenance bills were not small. I sold it after a year. With a profit, but also with regret. The technology is fantastic. It was the first car with 1000 hp and I still think it is more beautiful than the later Chiron and Tourbillon. But hey, sometimes you have to sell something to be able to experience something else. Or to take the collection to a higher level.’
A club of Bugattists
Club life also has a rich history. ‘In 1929, the English Bugatti Owners Club was one of the first brand clubs ever’, says Beerens. ‘The French, Dutch and German clubs - which I am also a member of - also continued to exist after the glory days. When we wanted to set up a Belgian club in 2016, it turned out that there was already one in the Crossroads Bank: it had been set up in 1960, but was later closed down. We then breathed new life into that story.’
‘Most members are quite old’, he admits. ‘The cars are not cheap and the public for pre-war cars is dying out. Yet there is rejuvenation, with a wealthy twenty-something as the driving force: he immediately bought one of the largest collections in the world. You also often see him with a screwdriver, like most Bugattists.’
‘There are exceptions, but most of them are not show-offs,’ says Beerens. ‘And some really live for their Bugatti. There are those who live in a small house, but put everything in their car. It is often a disease that is passed on from father to son.’ He shows a photo of Guillaume and Jean Prick. ‘Guillaume was the founder of the Dutch club. They were both addicted to Bugatti and went to the factory in Molsheim, France, every week.’ The son, named after Ettore’s son Jean, became known as ‘the crying Bugattiman’ in the 1970s after a TV broadcast. He died in 2019.
‘We have about 120 members, of whom about eighty are really active,’ says Beerens. ‘The French club is ten times as big, but proportionally more Bugattis were sold in Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland than in France. Maybe because there was more industry and money, I don’t know. A Bugatti cost a lot more than a regular car and was also popular in aristocratic and royal circles, with people who didn’t work but did race. It wasn’t a means of transport, it was a toy.’
The Bugattists still play. ‘I am a member of about twenty car clubs’, says Beerens. ‘Compared to other clubs, the Bugatti clubs organise a lot. In the WhatsApp group of the French club, a message appears every half hour.
He shows a photo of a recent club weekend in Luxembourg, where a member’s recently restored Type 40 was ‘baptised’. ‘Old Bugattis are also driven a lot. In Prescott, the home base of the English club, they race every weekend.’
‘You can become a member of our club without owning a Bugatti. They are usually fanatics who have other cars, or people who have sold their Bugatti. There is a member with a collection of 10,000 car books, which he also reads. Passing on knowledge is important to us. Every year we organise a technical day. For example, an older member explains how the front axle works and which oil you should or should not use. By the way, the English club has started making workshop manuals again, full of tips and tricks.'
Not everyone can become a member: you have to be nominated by two godfathers. ‘That way you create a threshold, so that you don’t get a troublemaker in’, says Beerens. ‘It’s better not to have troublemakers in your club. Furthermore, it is low-threshold: the membership fee is 60 euros. For events, we calculate everything down to the cent. Participation in the international meeting costs 3950 euros per team of two, including all activities, food, drinks, six hotel nights and technical support. That’s cheap. We don’t need five-star hotels either. Half of the participants are tinkering with their cars in the evening anyway.’
The international Bugatti meeting will take place from 8 to 14 June, 2025. ‘It takes place in a different country every year, and this time it’s up to us’, says Beerens. For practical reasons, a maximum of one hundred cars can participate. After a week, everything was full. The participants come from 22 countries.’
The event will cover approximately 1100 kilometres. The participants will stay overnight in Dinant and from there they will drive through the Belgian Ardennes, Luxembourg and the French Ardennes, visit Waterloo and Ronquières, and drive on Spa-Francorchamps with a lunch in Eau Rouge. ‘Our club works quite strictly by the book.
Protocol, minutes and signing: it's all part of it. And there's no alcohol during the rallies. It used to be different, but you can't do that anymore. The bar is wide open in the evenings. Most members are gastronomes. After a club weekend, there's always a few extra kilos.'
'And it might surprise you, but there are quite a few couples who drive,' he says. 'In a Type 35, the passenger sometimes gets a few stones in the face, when it rains you're sandblasted and your feet are scorching hot. But there's still a type of woman who likes to sit in it.'
'And of course, they talk about cars all the time. If someone has a breakdown, ten others stop to help. The idea is that everyone can finish the drive of the day, although that rarely works. Once, in the middle of the night, we ended up in the Novo garage in France, where the third generation works exclusively on Bugattis. The manager still has stock from his grandpa and helped us out. That's the ambiance. And not: driving around in a costume.'
Article was first published (in Dutch): www.tijd.be/sabato/auto/belgium-bugatti-club-onze-leden-zijn-geen-opscheppers/10604987.html
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